Tourism in India

1) Everyone you talk to says "you must go to the Golden Temple"

2) You try to negotiate a price with an auto rickshaw driver and end up completely confused with the driver insisting that you leave your shoes in his taxi while you go into the temple. 

2a) (During the taxi ride the driver stops the taxi, asks Dan to get out and pick up a rock from the side of the road and put it on his pile of prayerbooks. When Dan gets back into the autorickshaw the driver forgets that he needs to share his seat and Dan has to squat on a metal rail.)

3) You don't leave your shoes in the taxi and go into the temple but are completely unable to figure out what to do or where to go.

4) A random patient from the hospital wearing a shirt that says "let me be ur superhero" spies you and waves.

5) Your helpful Hindi friend finally figures out what to do, you put all your shoes in a bag and leave it at a counter, and you enter single file-women separate from men. Shoeless.

6) At the end of the walkway you're patted down to search for cell phones or cameras.

7) Then you're escorted into a caged room with many seats and told to sit.  There's popcorn and Pepsi available to buy.

8) For no apparent reason you're allowed to stand up and begin filing down another long walkway. Shoeless.

9) We come to a standstill. People stand in the long walkway which is caged with no exit available.  It is very hot and there's no understanding of why we are not moving.

10) After what seems to be seven hours the people in front of us start yelling in an unknown language and we are fearful that a riot is about to erupt. Our Hindi friends tells us this is the traditional way to ask what's going on-we wonder why this is not started happening sooner.  The line starts moving.

11) We finally enter what we what appears to be the temple and again are searched for cameras or cell phones then we begin the 3 km walk in a very circuitous pattern to the Golden Temple. Much like Joe Jackson, still shoeless.

12) For views of the temple, click here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Temple,_Sripuram

13) More than three hours later we exit the Golden temple--still shoeless.

14) When we finally reach home we are confused why all of our friends told us we must have this experience. Yet this is an experience we will never forget. 

In case you were wondering we do have our shoes.